Messages - Maintain FL 350

Citizens United is a corporation. That part definitely bothers me. A corporation is a purely legal entity, and it not at all clear that corporations should be granted the same rights that we as individuals hold.

I think there are 2 separate ideas being conflated here. One is the right to spend your money however you want to, which I agree is fine. The other is whether whether spending money is a first amendment right to free speech. I think this stretches the meaning of free speech a bit too far.

It seems almost impossible to separate these issues, though. If the Koch brothers decide to make a documentary about Obama, but are limited on how much they can spend making the documentary, isn't that limitation on free speech?

I am highly critical of the corrupting influence that money has on politics. I don't want to see this country become an oligarchy.

However, there will always be economic inequality. I don't think it's a question of whether the rich have more free speech than the rest of us. They do, however, have a greater ability to promote their views. They also have a greater ability to buy big houses and send their kids to better schools. It's one of the benefits of being rich. And yeah, it bothers me.

But at the same time, the guy from Occupy who camps out in front of LA City Hall also has a greater ability to promote his views than I do, because I have to go to work and can't afford play guitar in front of my tent all day.

I'm not really sure what the answer is, but it seems that by limiting the amount that people can spend on speech you will affect the content.

In most situations, he'd have a good argument. No matter how big of a jerk you are, that doesn't mean you are forced to sell your business.

However, my understanding is that the NBA franchise contract DOES allow for forced sales if the owner's behavior reflects badly on the league, or something like that. There is still a process they have to go through, but it's a contractual provision that he agreed to in order to buy into the franchise.

Maybe his best argument would be that it's an unconscionable provision, and against public policy? I doubt it, though. The court would likely just say "You entered into it willingly. Too bad."

I have no sympathy for a racist like Sterling who gets caught with his own words, but the whole thing has such a set up feel to it. The fact that she was recording conversations and asking leading questions, it's pretty smarmy.

A lawsuit seems like a longshot at best. I'd be against it on free speech grounds, regardless of how I feel about the rankings.

The answer to bad information is good information. A new rankings scheme which accounts for things like long term employment prospects and local reputation would be better.

One of the main problems I see with USNWR is that it holds all schools to a national standard by having lawyers and judges from around the country evaluate them.

Example: I know a lawyer in Montana who graduated from the University of Montana. UM has a great in-state reputation, and the state's bench and bar are well stocked with UM grads. It also has a good rep in surrounding states like Idaho and Wyoming. No one in Montana considers UM a second rate school. In fact, Montanans are really proud of their public university. It's also one of the cheapest law schools in the country.

So, USNWR asks a bunch a of lawyers and judges who know nothing about UM to rate UM. Then they look at it's fairly modest admissions selectivity.

The result?

UM ranks #121.

But in Montana it's #1, and would be the best choice for a kid who wants to live in that area. Those types of things are simply not accounted for in the current scheme.

Just remember this: the National Enquirer is one of the biggest selling periodicals in the nation. People love salaciousness, gossip and immaturity, all of which are available in spades at TLS and most other law school related sites.

I didn't know about this site when I was applying to law school, and I wish I had. There is some great advice here, beyond "don't go" and "re-take the LSAT."

I agree, the rankings are popular and will continue to make money for USNWR. In fact, they're beyond popular. People get absolutely obsessed with them, making predictions about which school will be #20 this year and which will be in a three way tie for #10.

I don't even necessarily mind such rankings, I just think people have lost all sense of context.

No lawyer needs USNWR to tell them that Harvard, Yale and Stanford are elite institutions. They were conferring elite pedigrees long before USNWR came up with it's rankings scheme.

The true absurdity of these rankings is the attempt to rank the 190 or so law schools which are not elite. What on earth does it mean to say that New Mexico is in a three way tie for #72 while San Diego is #79? The implication is that New Mexico is somehow a quantifiably "better" school.

The problem is that many young law students make their decision based solely on the rankings. So a young kid from San Diego who wants to live by the beach after law school will decide to go to New Mexico, or Iowa, or Dallas for law school because they've been told that rankings are everything.

As Burning Sands said, the impact is actually ridiculous. It has distorted many young people's ideas about how the legal market works. If you talk to older lawyers they will often tell you that before all of this there was far less distinction between schools. Harvard and Yale et al were always elite, but nobody was freaking out about whether Wisconsin was ranked higher than Illinois.

Interesting article. Apparently Alito, a Yale grad, thinks USNWR's law school rankings are a bunch of bunk. He seems to practice what he preaches and has only hired two Ivy League grads as clerks recently (of course, those clerks may have been from places like Michigan or Chicago).